This entry is off topic I know, but it may interest those who harbour a deep concern for issues concerning censorship on the blogsphere, and for those who are concerned about the arrogant ethnocentric attitudes that many foreigners have towards the Chinese. It is addressed to KLS, a contributer to Richard's peking Duck site:
Dear KLS,
I have just finished reading the comments on the weekend thread of Peking Duck, and noticed that you are unhappy with the type of site that Richard runs.
Let me begin here, by stating, for the record, that I do not hold any animosity towards you for "exposing" on Peking Duck the fact that I frequently copy and paste from other peoples' articles without always acknowledging the source. It was never a secret though. I openly discussed this practice of mine with Lirelou way back as far a last November or December - and on the pages of Peking Duck. I discussed this again with Conrad more recently. The way that Richard presented this habit of mine though was, as far as I am concerned, clearly way over the top. He invited his readers to join in on a witch hunt, and his copying and pasting of a baby photo from somewhere was clearly designed to humiliate me.
I admit that it is bad practice to copy and paste significant passages from other peoples' articles without acknowledging the source - but what Richard fails to appreciate is that I normally copy and paste from a variety of sources - sometimes from a dozen in one entry - in order to present an argument of my own. I produce a collage, in effect. Sometimes I place what I paste in quotation marks and acknowledge the source or the author, sometimes I don't. It depends largely on how much of a hurry I'm in, or on how lazy I'm feeling at the time. What I do really, is little different from what any journalist or academic writer does when they're putting together an essay or a polemic, except that I do not take the time and the care to properly acknowledge all of my sources. I should, I know, but Peking Duck is only a blog site for Christ's sake - I'm not writing for publication, or anything like that. I simply push a particular discourse, to test its strength. Usually, the discourse reflects roughly what I myself actually believe. I'm not the big fraud that Richard makes me out to be.
O.K. I accept the criticism though. It is bad practice, and I have already apologised to his readers for not taking the trouble and the care to always acknowledge all of my sources.
My response to this situation, as you would know, was to present myself merely as a creation, as a persona, no different from Dr Myers. This, to some extent, is true. I did create Dr Myers, and the Mark Anthony Jones that I present on Peking Duck is in many ways not the Mark Anthony Jones that I present to my friends and colleagues, who is different again from the Mark Anthony Jones that I present to say, my grandparents for example. We all, I think it is fair to say, alter our behavioural patterns quite automatically, depending on the social scene we're in.
So why did I create Dr Myers, and why has the Mark Anthony Jones Peking Duck persona changed over time? Well, that really is an easy question to answer. I'm bored!
I work as the Academic Director for a Chinese company licensed to manage training centres that deliver a university foundations program. I'm paid very well, but we have no training centres open yet, and I have been here in this job for just over one year. This is my fourth year in China though.
So basically, for the last 13 months, I have been paid to sit in a nice air conditioned luxury office, in front of this computer, but with absolutely no work to do! I'm not exaggerating when I say that. I sit here from 9 to 5 each week day, in front of this computer. I'm the only foreigner here in this office, and normally the only other person here is the secretary. So reading Peking Duck is one of the ways I entertain myself while at work. I am often busy here though, but not with work. I correspond with many friends, family members too, and I also contribute to other blogs (not China blogs).
Now, why has the Mark Anthony Jones persona changed over the last 13 months? Well, not merely because I am bored, that I seek entertainment. The change also reflects my changing attitude towards Peking Duck. I simply don't take the site seriously. I don't take Richard seriously either.
For the first three months, I seriously thought that Richard was somebody aged in his early to mid twenties. I got this impression from his writings - from his hysterical rants, etc. From the way he interacted with me, often in ways I found to be irrational and juvenile. It came as a real surprise to discover, after doing some research on him online, that he is aged about **. He may even be **.
He is definitely lacking in the maturity one might expect from a man of his age - he is emotionally volatile, and is prone to hysteria. For example, he once banned me from his site because I described one of his ideas as "ridiculous". That's right! I kid you not! I was always polite to him, I never used expletives, not towards anybody. I described one of his ideas as "ridiculous" and that one adjective was enough to get me banned. He sent me an email saying "I'm offended. You're banned." I had, at the time, absolutely no idea why I had been banned, what it was that I had done to offend him. He deleted the offending sentence, and banned me! And yet, he can trivialise me as a "sad Marxist", label me an "American basher" and distort my views, and that's quite acceptable behaviour!
On another occasion, Richard baked a photo of a grossly overweight woman sitting at a park bench, with her panties showing beneath her dress. The woman clearly wasn't aware of this. Richard wrote beneath the photo something to the effect that: "Just what I want to see on a lovely spring day!" In other words, he was inviting his readers to enter comments that make fun of this woman. And of course, they did. "She makes me feel like vomiting" wrote one commentator. You can imagine the rest: the comments were sexist and misogynistic. I of course, launched into a massive attack against both Richard and all of his other commentators, accusing them all of being misogynists, and questioning the maturity and ethics of such puerile behaviour.
Richard's response: he deleted the entire thread - photo as well as every comment. He was clearly embarrassed by the entire episode. All traces were deleted!
And then there was the SARS debate - I argued that SARS was a storm in a teacup, and that the Western media exploited the scare to push a particular discourse - that China is inferior, incapable of coping with crises of this nature, etc. Well, Richard accused me of taking an immoral stand, completely twisted and distorted my entire argument, and then closed the thread, preventing me from being able to make a reply! I stopped contributing for about two or three months out of protest. I admit here too, that I was so pissed off at the time that I rather irrationally and immaturely threatened him with a lawsuit for defaming me, and I am embarrassed about that. But still, his behaviour was outrageous.
When I resumed, I did so on the grounds that I was merely going to play around, to provoke a little, to stir things up a little, to entertain myself. O.K. Juvenile of me, I know - creating Dr Myers, Steve L, and Bryce. I even turned myself, Mark Anthony Jones, into more of a persona, and at times engaged in a little self-parody.
Peking Duck does attract some intelligent readers and contributors, true, and sometimes some really interesting conversations do develop. I really did appreciate the debate I had with Conrad about the legality of the US base on Guantanamo, for example. I pushed a discourse (that pushed by members of Cuban Solidarity groups, and yes, I did paste a slab from such a website, but I also on that occasion acknowledged the author of those views, and once again, my comments took the form of a collage. The point is, Conrad engaged meaningfully with me on that one, and he successfully destroyed two of my three arguments. I really did benefit from that exchange, because now I have a clearer understanding of the legal issues of that case. He wasn't able to completely destroy the argument that I presented, but he smashed two thirds of it.
But in my opinion, Peking Duck isn't much better than most of the other China blog sites. They're all pretty disappointing as far as I am concerned. Gordon's site, The Horses' Mouth, would have to be the most puerile, spiteful outpouring of bile that I have ever come across. It's just utter crap. Most of these people know little about China, most of them are not fluent in Chinese, and they seriously lack balance. They produce hate sites! I've said that to Richard before, and he was mortified by it, but I stand by the claim. It's a hate site, and one which encourages a pack mentality. If somebody addresses any of the positive legacies of the CCP, then they are labelled as CCP operatives and are then promptly gang raped and bashed.
And the Chinese, more generally, are viewed through ethnocentric eyes, which explains the condescending nature of many of the more "China-friendly" comments.
Filthy Stinking No.9, who supposedly has a PhD in history, projects a typically ethnocentric world view, his comments about the French and the Chinese are sometimes bigoted and chauvinistic, and yet he tends to be one of the more level-headed among the regulars. He has had the hide to accuse me on several occasions of being anti-American as well, I have NEVER said anything ever that is inherently anti-American, but he always labels me as such on the basis that I am very critical of US foreign policy. I have actually praised certain US foreign policies on Peking Duck like certain aspects of the Bush administration's Taiwan policies, but that is overlooked. FSN.9 though, by contrast, does say things that are fundamentally inherently anti-another nation. He said, in an earlier thread for example, quite explicitly, that he French are scum.So FSN9 is quite a French-basher, quite a racist bigot, it would seem, yet he presents himself as a scholar, as an academic, a China authority worth listening to.
Martyn can call me a "sad fu*k", a "sad shit" and tell me to "fu*k off", and another commentator here got away with telling American Man to go "fu*k himself and his dog" - and this was quite acceptable. But I got banned, about six or seven months ago, for politely suggesting that one of Richard's arguments was "ridiculous".
As I said, I do not take this site seriously. Eight months ago a guy named Greg wrote his first comment on Peking Duck, in which he argued that there is some reasonable cause for optimism about China's ability to adequately address its environmental problems. Richard responded by viciously attacking not only his views, but him personally - "you know nothing about China" said Richard. Greg responded by asking Richard why he responded to his first comments on the Duck in such a condescending manner. Richard's response to this was to ban Greg immediately though Greg, I believe, also behaved provocatively BUT NOT initially!
A lawyer named Kevin, who currently resides in Shanghai, on another occasion, posted a comment accusing Peking Duck of being a hate site that spews out little more than uerile bil though he also acknowledged some of its strengths and potential. No expletives were used, yet Kevin's comment was deleted as soon as it was discovered, and Kevin was banned.
Greg, Kevin and I are by no means the only people to have been the victim of Richard censorship practices either. Sam from Shenzhen Ren has written about his run-in with Richard, and how he was banned, and if you log onto the following site he Peril and Agony of Free Speech(www.urielw.com/bosco1.htm) who can read all the details about Richard censorship of Uriel.
So here we have Richard, who constantly criticises the CCP for its censorship, also censoring almost everybody who criticises his views or his site. He can allow some people to make personal attacks against others, using the most foul of language, and that's O.K. That's entertainment. But one single polite adjective like "ridiculous" is totally unacceptable, if it is used to describe one of Richard's own ideas.
Just take a look at today's open thread - if you'e honest with yourself, you will appreciate why I think Peking Duck is hardly a site to be taken seriously. We have two conversations going on, both of which are ridiculous: one is condescending, rude, disrespectful and outright ethnocentric, in that it takes an incident in which a mother allegedly allowed her child to sh*t on somebody's floor, and then proceeds to belittle the Chinese. Gordon, rather typically, joins the rant, saying that it reminds him of the post where he anted about the woman letting her dog sh*t on the floor in front of the elevator.Simon then joins in by telling American Man that if he ad taken a photo, it could've become like that Korean chick with her dog sh*tting on the train and then Gordon, once again, in his usual rude and spiteful manner, seeks to humiliate Bingfeng by saying to him, Bingfeng, did your parents let you sh*t on the floor when you were a baby Quality reading, right? And such maturity too!
The other conversation taking place on this thread revolves around the ridiculous question of whether or not China may go to war with the US, and here we get commentators like American Man belittling the Chinese yet again, saying that they all till live in caves west of Xian This of course, will be seen as humourous by the majority of Richard regulars, and probably by Richard himself but of course, this is not a hate site. It doesnt mock and belittle the Chinese people, it merely serves as an anti-CCP platform, right? Yeah, sure? Anybody capable of reading will know the subtext.
And so entered Dr Myers, to mock and to parody, but without the need to resort to any expletives. I had fun with her, while it lasted, as juvenile as the entire exercise may have been. And being Mark Anthony Jones was fun too. Together, they helped to expose the worst in Richard and many of his other regulars. Cyberspace, as I discovered through what really did, towards the end, develop into a deliberate conscious social experiment, resembles very closely the schoolyard! Blog communities can indeed, when not supervised by mature adults, degenerate into the kind of situation explored by William Golding in Lord of the Flies. Richard is a little like the character Jack, telling his readers what they want to hear about China, and instigating attacks and smear campaigns against those who dare to challenge the orthodoxy of his views. And as for his readers, for his flies, well, they provide yet further evidence to support Golding's view that people will always band together to single out others as scapegoats, especially when directed to do so by their perceived leaders. Richard is a little Hitler, or another Mao! (O.K. So I'm unfairly exaggerating perhaps, but you get my point!)I'm tempted to post this letter onto his site, just for a stir! But I will refrain from doing so - I'm trying to behave like the 35 year old that I am!
Or maybe Well, maybe I will post it on the Duck after all. I mean, to do so would be no less puerile than harping on about how uncivilized the Chinese allegedly are for allowing their babies to shit on somebody's floor. My above comments might be dismissed by many as the product of sour grapes, but that's fine. It will nevertheless hardly detract anything from the overall quality of this site. And if everybody else can behave like an adolescent in cyberspace, than so too can I. Peking Duck, thanks to Richard, has given us all such a license!
Best regards,
Mark Anthony Jones